Free Republic

Paul Pelosi owns up to $1 million of Tesla call options House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband hit pay dirt on Monday as Tesla's valuation rose to $1 trillion. The news comes as Pelosi spearheads legislation that doles out tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to the electric vehicle industry, including Tesla, with provisions to build charging stations for cars and incentivize electric car purchases through tax credits. The financial dealings of Pelosi's husband, Paul, came under scrutiny earlier this year when he purchased as much as $1 million of Tesla call options, one of the largest transactions of Tesla...

For years, progressives mocked anyone who warned that the Democratic Party's move leftward would produce government officials who might push actual socialist policies once in office. I'll admit that for a variety of reasons I never found this extreme version of the slippery-slope argument convincing. Yes, both sides have embraced big government policies, and the recent "America First" approach embraced by Republicans in recent years should alarm us. Still, with the Biden administration's nomination of Cornell University Law School professor Saule Omarova to become Comptroller of the Currency, I wonder if I was too fast to dismiss the possibility. Consider...

(Reuters) - An estimated 30 million to 50 million doses of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine made early this year sits idle in Emergent BioSolutions Inc's plant in Baltimore awaiting a green light from U.S. regulators to ship, two sources familiar with the matter said. The exact number of doses sitting idle cannot be determined, the source said, because Emergent only makes raw vaccine substance and does not fill vials with finished product. The FDA in April halted operations at Emergent's production facility after J&J's vaccine was found to be contaminated with material from AstraZeneca's (AZN.L) COVID-19 shots, which were...

The FDA advisory panel that voted 17-0 on Wednesday to recommended Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for children 5-11, despite acknowledging the lack of safety data and a 99.998% survival rate from infection, included a half-dozen members with ties to the pharmaceutical giant. Among the members were a former vice president of Pfizer Vaccines, a recent Pfizer consultant, a recent Pfizer research grant recipient, the mentor of a current top Pfizer vaccine executive, the operator of a center that distributes Pfizer vaccines and the chairman of a Pfizer data group, reported the National File.

Republican leaders are getting on board with Donald Trump’s growing list of Senate endorsements after months of hand-wringing over the former president’s picks. Despite early concerns that Trump could tip the scales toward untested primary candidates who could jeopardize the GOP’s mission to recapture control of the Senate next year, many Republicans are now expressing ease – even excitement – about the former president’s endorsements. “Six months ago, I would have told you that he should stay out of it, just let the primaries play out,” one Republican consultant who has worked on Senate campaigns said. “I don’t see a...

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Remember when we were assured that the Wuhan Institute of Virology "lab leak" theory for the origin of COVID-19 was "conspiratorial nonsense" and that we should "believe scientists" like Peter Daszak, who sneeringly told us as much? Those of us who questioned the party line were smeared by people like Daszak, the media and true believers as "conspiracy theorists" or MAGA mental midgets. We aren't physicians or experts in infectious diseases; how dare we doubt the Chinese government, our own government, the World Health Organization or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention? It turns out that our suspicions had...

BREAKING: Papa John’s FIRES Driver Who Attacked Trump Supporter A disturbing scene unfold near Cleveland, Ohio when a Papa John’s delivery driver ran a man off the road because the motorist was flying a Trump flag on his pickup truck. “Go f**k yourself,” the Trump triggered driver said. “This liberal will kick your ass.” “I will beat the f**k out of you,” the Papa John’s driver threatened. “I will beat the f**k out of you.”

Washington -- Remember the days when --pre-presidency! -- Joe Biden used to be given to uttering gaffes? He would utter a lot of them. I remember him in debate with the pulchritudinous Sarah Palin. In fact, he made so many gaffes we began calling him the gaffable Joe Biden. We may look back on those days and call them the "Good Old Days." Now he garbles whole press conferences. As the Wall Street Journal said of his interview with Anderson Cooper last week, "Mr. Biden often doesn't seem to know what he's talking about." The president was talking about nothing...

The mayor of Hazard, Kentucky, who is also the principal of Hazard High School, was seen receiving a lap dance from a scantily clad male high school student during a “man pageant” at a school assembly. Other staff members at the high school were also seen receiving lap dances from male students. “The incident is under investigation, and as you know, anything under investigation I really can’t talk about,” Hazard Independent Superintendent Sondra Combs told the Lexington Herald-Leader on Wednesday. Photos showcasing homecoming activities at Hazard High School were reportedly circulated on social media. The photos appear to show scantily...

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@ChadPergram Colleague Jacqui Heinrich rpts Biden will announce a framework for the social spending bill when at the Capitol mtg with Dems today. That should trigger a vote on the infrastructure bill. Dems hope 10-15 GOPers make up the difference since the margin is tight on infrastructure.

The Biden Administration has picked a fight they will lose. Not with Republicans in Congress. Not with the Taliban or China or Big Oil. They’ve made an enemy out one of the biggest sleeping giants in America: parents. Naturally, it all starts with COVID because everything we’ve done as a nation for the last two years can’t escape the topic. But in this case COVID did the American parent an enormous favor. With virtually all school doors shuttered and school children locked away for an entire academic year behind computers at home, parents got a front row seat in their...

What do you gift one of the biggest teen pop stars in the world? If you're President Joe Biden, the answer is easy: a shoehorn. Olivia Rodrigo, the singer behind the hits "Driver's License" and "good 4 u," was invited to the White House back in July to promote the Covid-19 vaccinations among young people. During an appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" on Tuesday, Rodrigo revealed the president had given her a few gifts when she visited: some M&Ms, a pair of black aviator Ray Bans (the same ones he wears) and a shoehorn, "which was strange," Rodrigo said. "I...

In a controversial passage in Plato's "Republic," Socrates introduced the idea of the "noble lie" ("gennaios pseudos"). A majestic fiction, he says, could sometimes serve society by persuading uninformed citizens of something good for them. Ever since, many prevaricators have used the excuse that they lied for the common good. Take Dr. Anthony Fauci, our point man on the COVID-19 epidemic. Fauci misled the country about mask-wearing during the pandemic by claiming they were of little use. But he argued that he lied so the public would not make a run on masks, deplete the supply, and thus rob medical...

Democrats love nothing more than loyalty, and by that I mean loyalty to them. They don’t return it, ever. You are either with them or you are their enemy. They can pretend to be Jerry Maguire – “I love black people!!!” – all they want, when the chips are down and someone with black skin disobeys them it is all out war. Same goes for gay people. Remember Touré? Probably not. Even when he had a job where he could have achieved some level of respect and notoriety, he didn’t. Rather than accomplish things, Touré chose to spend his time...

Students in Rhode Island are asking a federal appeals court to affirm that all public school students have a constitutional right to a civics education, saying that they aren’t taught how to meaningfully participate in a democratic and civil society ... ...The plaintiffs have asked the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Boston, to reverse a lower court’s dismissal of the case, declare there’s a constitutional right to an adequate civics education, and send the case back to district court.... ...The defendants include Rhode Island’s governor, education commissioner and other education authorities. Their lawyer, Anthony Cottone, told the...

This holiday season, we all have to look forward to the faces of sad kids gathered around the Christmas tree, or Hanukkah menorah, or the Kwanzaa hammer and sickle as we must tell them that their favorite holiday is a bust because America can’t get the stuff it needs from China. Even leftists’ kids, to the extent the leftists managed the mechanics of breeding, will be disappointed that Santa Marx will not be coming down the chimney, redistributing presents on what our beloved Veep Kamala Harris explained was her favorite childhood holiday. The problem is not the inevitable end result...

There is a natural tension in human affairs between freedom and safety. This tension has been highlighted by the COVID pandemic and was brought into sharp focus by resident Biden’s fallacious and dismissive remark about freedom during his recent, odd appearance on a CNN townhall. His uncomfortable attempt at sarcasm “’I have the freedom to kill you with my COVID.’ No, I mean come on! Freedom...” was addled by any number of factors. The President appears to believe that freedom and safety are exclusive matters of preference, like iPhone versus Android. The President’s rather shallow attention to the issue is...

There are some folks out there who don't believe that Critical Race Theory exists. (This despite the fact that many organizations have unapologetically come forward admitting that it does.) Others believe it's just "teaching our history." (This despite the fact that we've been "teaching our history," more or less, warts and all, at least since I was in first grade, 36 years ago.) But I get it. It's a subjective term and hard to define. So let's get rid of the hard to define terms and go with some hard, factual examples. This particular example doesn't come from the education...